


I Was in the Neighborhood, Thought I'd Drop By

by E_Salvatore



Series: Tagged: TBTP Tumblr Fics [8]
Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Fic, come for the plotholes stay because our fandom is tiny and you can't afford to be picky, the (drama-free) return of Coralee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5961424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/pseuds/E_Salvatore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All things considered (his age, for one), it’s a miracle that Strand doesn’t suffer from a heart attack and drop dead the second he turns on the lights in his darkened apartment and finds his wife waiting for him in the living room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was in the Neighborhood, Thought I'd Drop By

Richard Strand has always prided himself on being unflappable. Maybe it comes with the territory, being the only skeptic in a group of ghost-hunters just waiting for something to jump out at them. While the others scream and shriek and curse, he has always been the one to remain calm and composed, his voice an anchor for the more faint-hearted members of their expedition to hold onto as he rattles off possible explanations for the sudden chill in the air or the touch someone just felt or the shrill cry that came from nowhere.

It’s been a while since his last ‘ghost’ hunt – he’s never been particularly fond of them and the ones he does go to, he’s usually just there to accompany Alex – so maybe he can chalk this up to being out of practice.

_This_ being the undignified yelp he lets out when he flicks on the living room lights and finds an unexpected guest in his armchair.

But then again, when you come home after a long day and fumble for the light switch in the dark only to look up and find your supposedly dead wife seated in your living room… well, Strand figures he’s allowed an undignified shriek or two.

“Coralee?”

It takes four tries for him to get those three painfully familiar syllables out. The grin on her face grows wider with every clearing of his throat, every crack in his voice, every _Cor-_ that dies a slow, breathless death, suffocated by a swell of emotions.

“Hello, Richard.”

She provides an easy counterpart to his wide eyes and racing heartbeat, his spinning mind and his screaming internal monologue. Coralee is the very picture of poise as she gracefully rises from the chair, eyes calm and steps measured as she approaches him.

Seven steps and she’s in front of him, close enough that he could just reach out and… and what? It’s been _years_. Five years ago, he might’ve picked her up, spun her around, kissed her the way a husband should kiss his wife after all this time apart. Three years ago, he might’ve reached out first, pulled her in for an embrace, pressed a tender kiss to her temple.

Now, he stands mere inches from her and she feels as far away from him as she has been since the day she vanished. It’s been years. Things have changed. And love… love has faded, withered away, died an agonizingly slow death over the last two decades.

Coralee doesn’t close the distance between them, doesn’t fling herself into his arms or press her lips to his. It feels like the answer to a million questions.

“I’m sorry to show up like this… and to break into your home, I guess,” Coralee shrugs, completely unrepentant. “It’s just, I thought it might be for the best if no one sees me here. And I can’t believe you _still_ keep a key under your doormat. Honestly, Richard, how many times-”

“It’s not for me,” Strand blurts out unthinkingly, an old defense mechanism triggered by the familiar note of exasperation in his wife’s voice. _Wife_ doesn’t feel like the right thing to call her anymore, not with Coralee alive and breathing and in his apartment. It was okay to call her his wife when she was gone, when she was dead and calling her his wife didn’t mean he actually _had_ a wife. But this changes everything.

_Ex-wife_ , his mind supplies helpfully… almost hopefully. He pushes the thought aside for now.

“Oh.” Coralee blinks. “Right. Of course.”

The silence that follows is awkward enough to really drive home the fact that his _dead wife_ is here. In his apartment. In Seattle. Strand finds himself falling back on social conventions in a desperate attempt to move past this moment.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Coralee seems relieved to have him moving the conversation along. “A glass of water would be great, thanks.”

Strand nods and turns to head for the kitchen. Thankfully, she doesn’t follow him. The brief respite from her presence gives him some much needed time to clear his mind and get his thoughts in order. By the time he returns with her glass of water, Strand’s ready to cut to the chase and demand some answers.

“You have a lot of explaining to do.” He tells Coralee firmly as he hands over her water, careful to avoid any contact as her fingers curl around the glass while it’s still in his hand.

“I know,” She sighs, retreating to the armchair he’d first found her in. “Where do I even start?”

“Start with the fact that you’re actually _alive_ ,” Strand snaps. He’s too agitated to sit down, even though this conversation promises to be a long and challenging one.

“Richard,” Coralee blinks at him with wide eyes. “Surely you must have suspected… I mean, with all that Alex dug up-”

She listens to the show. He’ll figure out how he feels about that later.

“Do you have any idea how long it took me to accept your death?” He cuts her off mid-sentence. “ _Years_ , Coralee. And even more years trying to move past it, to move past the guilt I felt for letting you go off on your own. All in all, it took me no less than a decade to bury you.” And even then, she had haunted him from beyond the grave, had threatened to wrap his guilt around his neck like a noose and drag him six feet under with her. “I wasn’t about to get my hopes up just because some lady in Lake Tahoe claimed to have seen you.”

Coralee’s grip on her glass tightens, the force of it choking the life out of her knuckles until they turn white. “So you really thought…?”

“Yes.”

Her bottom lip starts quivering. It’s the first thing she’s done so far that screams _Coralee my wife_ , not _Coralee this stranger with my wife’s face and my wife’s voice and nothing familiar in her eyes_. “I’m so sorry, Richard. I just… I never meant to put you through this. You know that, don’t you?”

Strand sighs heavily, the fight draining out of him with every passing second of Coralee’s earnest, teary eyes fixed on his. “I don’t think I know anything anymore.” He sinks into the sofa opposite her, a coffee table strewn with papers (a fair share of them relating to her) the only thing between them. “Just… tell me what happened. Please.”

“Well, I… I’m not sure that even I know the entire story.” Coralee offers him an apologetic smile. “All I know is that one day, I started receiving these threats. _Leave your husband or we’ll make you_ , something along those lines.”

So it was all his fault. The weight of this realization is the only thing that keeps him from interrupting Coralee.

“I didn’t think much of it. Probably just a prank, right?” She sets her glass down on the table with a harsh _thud_ , and winces. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Strand manages to croak out. “What happened next?”

Coralee picks at the frayed hem of her shirt, pulling loose a few stray threads. “They dragged Charlie into it. Said that they would make your life a living hell one way or another, and I could either leave you without a wife or without a daughter.”

A hot rush of anger propels him to his feet. “Who the hell are these people?”

“I have no idea.” Coralee reaches down, bringing his attention to a messenger bag tucked behind the armchair. She retrieves a manila envelope that looks about two seconds away from being torn apart, filled to the brim with a thick stack of papers. “This is all I’ve managed to find over the past twenty years. Your reporter friends could probably dig a little deeper.”

While Strand pulls out the contents of the envelope to give them a hasty once-over, Coralee produces something else from the bag: a USB drive. It doesn’t take him long to pick up on her hesitation to hand the drive over.

“What’s that?” 

“More of that, mostly,” She points at the papers in his hand. “But there’s also… me. Information about my life these past few years, evidence that I’m alive and well – I thought that you might like to have the police close my case once and for all.”

“I…” He hasn’t even begun to consider what Coralee’s return means for his reputation, what it might feel like to have his name cleared after all these years. The pure _relief_ of putting an end to this renders him speechless. “… _thank you_.” When he finally speaks, his voice is thick with the gratitude he can find no other way to convey.

“It’s the least I can do, after…” Coralee shrugs. She carefully places the drive on the coffee table, and Strand resists the urge to snatch it up and pocket it for safekeeping.

“I’ve been working with a friend to track down the people who first contacted me back then.” Coralee tells him. “It took us a while, but we managed to narrow it down to four men who appear to have known your father.”

The past hour has been so full of unexpected developments that it shouldn’t even faze him to find out that his father had something to do with this. It shouldn’t… but it does. “My father?” Strand echoes uncertainly.

Coralee nods. “It would appear that they weren’t after you personally – it’s your father they were angry at, and they took it out on you. I don’t know what started it,” She quickly adds before Strand can question her. “But we both know your father was involved in some… shady dealings. He probably would have picked up a few enemies here and there.”

“My father,” Strand repeats, his words tinged with disbelief.

“My friend contacted me a week ago,” Coralee carries on, leaving Strand to snap out of it in his own time. “Three of the men are dead, and one will be locked away for the rest of his life. That’s why I finally reached out to you.”

That appears to pull Strand back to the present. “It’s over?”

“Well, the danger has passed.” She tells him. “But I have no doubt that you’ll be diving headfirst into this to figure it out, so I’d say it’s not quite over yet.”

“Can you blame me?” Strand asks, carefully pushing the papers back into their envelope. “This is all so… unexpected, for one. Up until today, demons would have been higher up on my list of suspects than a group of men holding a grudge against my family.”

“It _does_ sound ridiculous,” Coralee agrees.

“And even with that aside,” He frowns. “I still have so many questions, Coralee. Why did you leave the way you did? Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

“I…” It’s been so many years, but Coralee visibly struggles against an onslaught of emotions as she considers his questions. “Richard, I know that I owe you these answers but I just,” She picks up her glass of water, for the mere purpose of giving her hands something to do. “I don’t want to talk about this today. Please.”

“But someday.” Strand isn’t asking.

“Someday.” Coralee promises.

The silence that rolls in isn’t as bad as its predecessor, but she still feels the need to pierce through it. “I’m in contact with Charlie.”

For a split-second, Strand’s shoulders tense and his hand hovers mid-air, suspended while on its way to reach for the USB drive. “Oh.” He says simply, when what he really means is _oh? Tell me more. Tell me everything._

“I reached out to her a few years ago, when I thought it might finally be safe to.” Coralee tells him. “It took a while for us to patch things up, but she’s let me back into her life.”

Of course Charlie would let her mother back into her life. Coralee used to be her whole world, the star around which her younger self had orbited. Charlie had taken to Coralee the day they were introduced, and had grown up to pick fights with anyone who dared to crack jokes about Coralee being an evil stepmother. She would never dream of freezing Coralee out the way she’s frozen him out.

“She’ll let you back too, you know,” Coralee gives him what is probably meant to be an encouraging smile. “She just needs some time, but she’ll forgive you eventually – if there’s even anything to forgive. You’re not the one who abandoned her, after all.”

Coralee didn’t _abandon_ Charlie; quite the opposite, given that she had sacrificed _everything_ to keep Charlie out of harm’s way. Strand intends to tell her so but just then, they both pick up on footsteps approaching the front door.

“It’s probably Alex,” Strand offers when he catches sight of the questioning look in Coralee’s eyes and the tense set of her shoulders. “This… um.” He clears his throat and finds the strength to look his (ex?) wife in the eye. “This is her apartment.”

“It’s also your apartment.” Coralee points out.

Strand runs a hand through his hair. “Yes.”

She doesn’t react to his words, and somehow that makes him even more nervous. “I’m sorry, Coralee, but it’s been almost twenty years. I thought you were dead. You have to understand how things seemed from-”

“Richard.” Coralee gets to her feet and makes her way to him. She places a hand on his shoulder, a gesture that’s probably meant to be reassuring. He’s frozen in place by her touch, her proximity and the kind smile she offers him. “You’ve spent more time mourning me than you did loving me. I think you deserve to let yourself move on now.”

As if on cue, the front door swings open.

“Hey, sorry I’m-”

Alex drops her keys. They chime a cacophony of discordant notes as they fall to the ground, but she makes no move to retrieve them. Her eyes have grown impossibly wide, and they are fixed squarely upon the woman in her living room, a woman she’s never met in her life but whose name immediately tumbles past her lips.

“Coralee?”

“Hello, Alex.” The older woman smiles, removing her hand from Strand’s shoulder as she sweeps past him to get a better look at her husband’s… _girlfriend_ seems too innocent, too childish, too inadequate a word. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Um, likewise,” Alex responds politely. “This is… I mean… wow. You’re here. And you’re alive. And-” Strand still hasn’t said a word; Alex doesn’t quite know what to make of his silence but it’s not like Strand to keep quiet with his missing wife _right there._ He must have a million things to say to her, things he’d probably been saying before Alex had unknowingly intruded upon them. “Did I interrupt something? I’m sorry. I’m just going to-”

“Oh, nonsense!” Coralee dismisses Alex’s concerns with a wave. “Please, stay. I was just about to leave, actually.” She picks up her bag and the coat she’d draped over the back of the armchair.

Alex finally bends down to get her keys. “Really? I mean, you don’t have to leave on my account. I’d be happy to leave you guys to talk-” By the time she straightens up, keys in hand, Coralee’s already buttoned up her coat.

“That’s very kind of you,” She says, walking up to Alex. Strand follows closely behind, still unable to string together a sentence while in the presence of his ex-wife and his… Alex. “But I really do have to get going.”

The door’s still open, and Coralee easily slips past Alex to cross the threshold. “Richard, I’ll look into having divorce papers drawn up.” She says, turning around to face them. “You’ve only gotten grumpier with age. Anyone who can put up with that deserves a ring on her finger.”

Alex doesn’t quite know how to react to the wink Coralee shoots her.

Neither does Strand, judging by his stammering attempts to say something, anything. Finally, he comes to stand next to Alex. “Thank you, for…” He gestures vaguely at himself and Alex, because it’s easier than saying _thank you for being okay with the fact that I’m in love with someone else now._ “I’m sorry things turned out this way, Coralee.” That feels like the right thing to say, at least. He knows Alex won’t hold it against him.

“I’m not,” Coralee shrugs, surprising them both. “I found my own Alex, you know. I mean, his name’s not actually Alex. That would be one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?” She laughs, her eyes glowing with delight when Alex joins in.

Coralee hesitates briefly before she speaks again, offering them more insight into her current life. “I have a son, too.  And I can’t say I regret anything, because there’s nothing I’d take back if it meant losing him. So trust me when I say I’m happy now, Richard, and I’m happy for you two as well.”

“Oh.” It takes a while for Strand to formulate a proper response to his wife telling him she’s moved on with someone else and has even had a child with that person. “I’m happy for you, Coralee.” And he’s even happier to find that he means every word of it. “I’m glad you found someone who wants the same things you do.”

“Thank you, Richard.” Coralee says simply, a more subdued smile on her face. It feels more personal, more heartfelt somehow. “Alright,” She speaks up after a moment of silence. “I’ve got to get going. Alex, I left some things with Richard that should help you piece together the last of my story. I think it’s only fair that your listeners get a satisfying conclusion.”

Alex gapes at her for a few seconds. “That’s- thank you so much! I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” Coralee smiles before turning her attention to Strand. “You’ll get your answers someday, I promise.”

Strand nods. “You’ll know where to find me. But please, just give us a call next time. There probably won’t be a key waiting for you under the mat.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Coralee says. “Good night, Richard, Alex.”

They echo their respective good-nights at her, and watch Coralee walk down the hallway until she turns a corner and leaves their sight. Alex shuts the door behind her and turns to Strand.

“Did that really just happen?”

Strand drags one hand down his face, resigning himself to a restless night as the back of his head starts pulsing with an oncoming migraine. “Did my supposedly dead wife just show up to explain her own disappearance and give us her blessing?”

Alex nods.

“Yes,” Strand sighs. “Yes, she did.”

“Okay,” Alex hooks one arm around Strand’s and leads him back to the living room. “So… what now?”

When they sink into the couch (and there’s really no other word for it; it’s been a _long_ day), Strand pulls her closer as he considers her question.

Finally, he gives her an answer he’s deemed satisfying: “Now we have dinner, and go about our night as if nothing has changed.”

“But it has,” Alex protests. “Everything’s changed.” She can’t imagine what Strand must be dealing with right now. Things are confusing and complicated enough from where she’s standing, and she’s not even the one who just spoke to her spouse for the first time in nearly twenty years. She’s just the one who’s been dating a married guy for about two years now.

“Well,” Strand shrugs. They’re close enough that the movement jostles her. “That depends.”

Alex draws back to place some distance between them, making it easier for her to observe him while they talk. “On what?” She asks.

Strand grins. “On how you feel about dating a divorcée.”

“You know that’s not what I was talking about,” Alex scowls, though the effect is ruined when a fragment of a laugh escapes her.

“But?” Strand presses, eyes bright with mirth.

And this is really the last thing they should be talking about right now, with an unmarked envelope waiting for them on the coffee table and a story to uncover, a case to solve, a thousand complications to deal with.

Alex shakes her head and smiles. “Widower or divorcée – you know it doesn’t make a difference to me.”

“And you know that Coralee being alive doesn’t make a difference to me, right?” Strand tells her almost anxiously, his eyes imploring her to trust him.

She’s always trusted him, even back when his wife was still presumed dead and pretty much everyone except the police thought he was responsible for it.

“So nothing’s changed?” Alex asks even as her lips curve into a smile.

Strand wears a smile of his own - a soft, sincere thing that's grown as familiar to her as his wry grins.

“Nothing’s changed.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I decided to channel my inner six-year-old and write a 'everyone's alive, everything's okay, we all live happily-ever-after!' fic while I still can - you know, before the show destroys me. I have a lot of issues with this (mainly with how poorly thought-out it is) but come on, y'all should know me better by now. If I slaved over 3500 words, I'm damn well going to shove it into your faces and hope you guys like it.
> 
> [Here, have two deleted scenes and an alternate ending.](http://esalvatore3.tumblr.com/post/139056639724/i-was-in-the-neighborhood-deleted-scenes)


End file.
